French Elite league

Lille – or Lille Métropole Rugby Club Villeneuvois to give them their rather long full name (hence LMRCV) – have made history with their first French Championship, beating three-time champions Montpellier for the first time after a roller-coaster of a game, and a season.

The final of the Top 8 will be a repeat of 2015 with Lille taking on triple champions Montpellier on 21st May.

Montpellier are strong favourites  to reach the final again after a strong performance against Toulouse, but last year’s runners up, and for most of the season league leaders, Lille have a lot of work to do.

It’ll be Montpellier vs Toulouse and Lille v Blagnac St Orens in the playoff semi-finals for the French championship, to be played home-and-away over the next couple of weekends.

The semi-final places have been decided with one weekend to go in the league phase of the Top 8 – it’s just a matter now of who plays who.

While the top leagues in most of the Six Nations have paused (or even come to an end), in France there have been two rounds of the Top 8 with all of the top players in action right up to the weekend before the start of the championship

Lille have opened up an three point lead at the top of the French Top 8 after a weekend of more surprise and drama.

The second half of the Top 8 regular season began last weekend with games the reverse of the opening weekend, giving champions Montpellier a chance to put right their only significant stumble of the year to date.

For technical reasons we're going to have to take a 48 hour break from this evening, so here is a quick rundown of latest from the French Top 8, plus stories from Australia, Pakistan, Spain and Italy.

Despite events in Paris, two of the three scheduled Top 8 games went ahead on Sunday resulting in a change at the top of the table

While the leaders had the week off there were some tight games in France last weekend as the league phase nears halfway - but it was a good weekend for champions Montpellier.

There are still 10 games to go in the Top 8, but the cream is already rising to the top.